It's really easy to look back and laugh. And I did. This PIF is really, really funny, for all the wrong reasons. It can't have seemed so phoney then as it does now.
I would have thought that 'the youth' of the day might have taken this movie a little more seriously than I would have if I had seen it when I was 14, listening to ones elders wuld have been a more respected value back in the day.. but the bad lip synching would have made me chuckle regardless, I'm sure.
Essentially this PIF is all about going through puberty, and not acting like a child any more. And one thing has remained constant it seems... that adolescents really don't want to be treated like children, so I'm sure this film would have been successful in getting across its message in that respect. I find it odd though that it would have been deemed neccessary to literally tell young people to grow up, instead of letting it happen naturally. Maybe the same happens with todays programming on television, just in a more covert way.
The story here is particularly poor. I can't see this ever happening. The kid is going to voluntarily rate the age of his attitude? Didn't take much persuading, did he? And no backchat to the smarmy janitor? My times have changed.
I keep seeing more and more constants with each of these films. None of them apart from the one about gossip are from a female perspective. And even the 'Gossip' PIF had a male voiceover.
]]>This film preaches many of the same messages as the drunk driving public information film that was commented on earlier. It shares many similarities, most obviously that it is aimed at teen drivers. Young people seem to be targetted frequently in a lot of these films, showing that young people have been considered a problem since forever. Also notice another war reference, as we have seen in previous films. Here, the narrator claims that more deraths had occured on the road up until that point than had been killed in the Korean War. Obviously this number would have multiplied enormously since then.. so much that the number would be incomparable.
Another thing I have noticed that links these films is that they almost always have a story. At that point the medium of the documentary film had not yet been popularised, and so a (now) cheesy backstory is used to hook the attention of the viewer, like a soap opera. Not until around the time that the 'Skateboard Sense' PIF was made did these standards change.
Also notice that in this instance death is used as a tool to shock, as we have seen previously. Plus, another authority figure plays a roll. Sometimes it's a headteacher, this time it's a policeman. The same generic values continuously occur in these early PIF's.
Finally, I would like to say that it was nice to see Tom Hanks in this movie, if only briefly. He is surely younger than his years. ;-)
]]>I love in this video how the guy manages to choose the scariest girl I have ever seen for his first date. She is terrifying, in my opinion. Even more terrifying, is that there was an instructional video on how to date.
If I was a teenager at the time that this was shown, and I had seen this film, I would have been quaking in my boots. This makes girls seem awfully scary and difficult to please. Also, according to PIF, looks come first, and then a decent honest guy will judge the girls personality afterwards. No wonder my grandparents are a little backwards if this is the sort of thing they were made to watch when they were dating.
As always, you must take into account that this was a different time, and attitudes were a little different, but there's a limit. The film is completely shot from the male perspective, so one has to assume that it was made for boys, and the pressure they must have been under to act like they're 'normal' and so as to not displease their lady surely was immense, if this video is anything to go by.
]]>I find this public information film from the late 1950's to be quite perplexing. For some reason, it solely warns against the dangers of gossip of all things. That's right, gossip. Not the dangers of carrying offensive weapons, the dangers posed by muggers or the dangers of crossing the road, but the dangers of gossip. Now maybe it was a more innocent time, or maybe I'm missing the point, but I don't really understand why effort was put into creating a film about gossip.
Surely it only makes people paranoid and untrustful of others to say that gossip could be so destructive? I mean, the girl was going to have to leave school just because someone started a rumour that she might have fooled about with some random jock.. my, how times must have changed.
Or maybe the film was produced with the point in mind of scaring people into being more careful around others. Scare the viewer into not trusting others with idle gossip about themselves, and maybe the viewer won't trust people with bigger information. I know I go back to this repeatedly, and maybe I'm wrong, but I think that most of these films are masked propaganda, this one being a prime example. Why else would one make a film like this?
This particular film is a great example of the very traditional public information film... the kind of public information film that is frequently parodied. Note the very austere narration, supplied to us by the amazing headteacher that manages to save the day, and save a pupil from expulsion (because she *may* be a slag, you see), and the rampant sexism on display from the beginning until the end.
Times may have been different then, but it goes to show just how much women were treated as second class just fifty years ago. But bless them, they try their hardest not to be sexist. The myth that it's only women that gossip is sensationally broken.
The very end of the film says it all really. 'See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.' From that alone I sense that this film isn't as innocent as it makes out to be.
]]>This public information film, from the late 1960's informs the viewer of how to safely skateboard, to both protect them and those around them.
This is one of the only PIF's that I found to be relatively non-patronising and not filled with propaganda, though there is a small amount there, the purpose of the film appears to be just to inform of how to skate safely as opposed to other hidden agenda's. Also, the film is really quite well shot, with some nice camera-angles and direction.
The narration from the super-cool skating expert could still be used today, such is his tone and presentation. The guy actually looks a little like some skaters that are around currently, and his tricks are quite impressive considering how young skateboarding must have been at the time. It's nice to finally see one of these films that doesn't treat the viewer like a complete and utter imbecile. I must also add that skateboards in the late 60's were FUNKY.
The entire film is very progressive in that it features great direction (the first person shots are cool), the editing is quick enough to still hold the attention of its target audience today, and theres even some blood and guts! (Well, a bloody hand. Probably ketchup.)
Having said this, there are still a couple of dubious moments that even a calm and casual narrator can't mask entirely. Particularly when he claims that 'everyone will hate you' if you skate where other people are. My cynical mind also thinks that part of the purpose of this film was to try and get skaters from under peoples feet by getting them off the streets. Plus, it's funny how you fall over completely differently if you're wearing the correct safety equipment.
]]>This public information film really makes me laugh, and it shocks me too, in many ways. If there was ever a prime example of these PIF's being used as covert propaganda, this is it.
The far-too-casual-for-such-talk voiceover claims that 10 times the people have been killed in accidents in comparison to the amount of US soldier killed in wars.. a flippant claim if ever I heard one. How can that comparison even be made? an 'accident' is slightly different, in that it is generally unexpected - for example, you don't see an accident coming, but once it has happened it is an accident. Comparing this to a series of wars is odd. I found this to be a strange comparison indeed.. Okay, it wasn't so long after the second world war, so maybe the writers of the film were in such a mindset, but it is still extremely tenuous. Or, it's propaganda. Maybe a little from column A, and a little from column B...
The amount of flippant talk in the voiceover for this film concerned me in particular. Considering the (supposed) point of the film was to make the public aware of potential accidents, one would think that the narration could be more... precise? For example, he talks about the amount of money spent repairing accidents every year, and then quotes some seemingly random figure, before adding 'or something like that.' Who is this guy supposed to be speaking for?
In contemporary American television there is undeniably a lot of spood-feeding from the broadcasters to the audience, and it's not surprising when looking back at old footage such as this- American audiences have clearly grown up being spoonfed information from the television. Particularly, when the narrator gives us a highly scientific explanation as to how accidents happen... the signals in the brain 'get mixed up', and this is called an 'accident', apparently.
Finally, the funniest and most disturbing part of this clip is when the narrator is talking about the (hopefully) fictional family he went to visit. To illustrate a bad family set-up, with accidents waiting to happen, he talks about 'the fat wife'. And when the family have gotten their act together? The wife is thin! I wonder if it's possible to say such things today on America's ultra-conservative television networks?
The point of the PIF is that one should take more care to prevent accidents from occuring, but it goes about it in the wrong way, even for the time in which it was shown, in my opinion.
]]>As is often the way with these American PIF's, the initial casual tone of this film is superseded by a fairly horrific account of what could happen to you if you're not a good, sensible citizen. Despite the story of our drunk driving 18 year old almost certainly being fictional, it is understandable how impactful such a film could have been at the time of airing. Although, the PIF is seemingly aimed at young drivers, the case study being 18 years old. It's difficult to judge whether the youth of the time would have taken its formal tone seriously, or not.
The brief when producing such a film is to firstly relate to the audience, and then shock them with an 'it could be you!!' scenario. Bill is just your average 18 year old guy, he hangs out with the boys, likes a drink or two while relaxing, and then he goes and accidentally kills a little girl and maims her mother for life. Lesson learned? Don't drink and drive.
It's difficult to judge how impactful a film such as this would have been at the time of airing... in this country today there are public information shorts shown regarding similar problems and indeed there are films warning against driving while under the influence. In fact, there are striking similarities between contemporary shorts and PIF's from nearly 50 years ago. One recent short showed a group of 'proper lads' sitting at a table in a pub, eyeing some woman up from a distance. And then everything goes crazy and the woman ends up on the floor, apparently dead. The age of the men, the men having a casual drink, the man (the metaphorical driver) killing a woman... the similarities are there. The message has remained relatively unchanged.
There was also a PIF not so long ago, which showed a small child slumped against a tree, a voiceover (apparently the child) tells the audience that if she had been hit by a car at 30 miles per hour she would have lived. The PIF was not regarding drunk driving, but the potential death of children is something that strikes most people as poignant and uncomfortable, and is still being used as a shock tactic now, however in this instance its use might be considered more valid.
This PIF, like all of them, really shows its age now. While one must always bear in mind that the film was produced 50 years ago probably less than 10 years after broadcasting began in America, it is still interesting to see how much as changed with regards to both attitudes and the stylistic approach to filmmaking-for-television.
The use of the case study seems to be a recurring theme in such films. The viewer is expected to relate directly to the case study, and not make the same mistakes! It is often a case of 'Bill is just like you', and that 'it would be this easy for you to fall foul of evil too!' In a sense, it seems as though the producers of these PIF's didn't know of any other approach to take. Though, this is not always the case.
The narrator states that drinking 'is a social custom of our time'. We should remember that prohibition only ended 25 years previously to this film, and many of the viewers potentially would have remembered prohibition, when the production and distribution of alcohol as illegal. The producers (by direction from the government) are telling us that while buying alcohol is great, and is allowed, it must not be abused.
]]>When I was told that I had to write a blog about a particular subject for a module at university, I racked my brain trying to think of something that interests me enough to write about, and a subject that I could sustain writing about for a number of consecutive posts. Ironically, the subject that I eventually chose to write about is a subject that I know very little about, but one that has recently piqued my interest.
I originally intended to write about current films and television programs, since I am studying film and television, however seeing just the bare minimum number of films would have cost me too much money, and the cinema in Aberystwyth isn't exactly your city-sized 30 screen megaplex.. in fact, I'm struggling to remember if the place has two screens or just the one. I've been once. I didn't like it. Television was an option, but getting a reception in my room, even with freeview is nye on impossible. So, I continued to think.. and think.. and think. I definitely didn't want to write about sport, and the majority of my 'interests' would have really pushed my patience when trying to write several posts. Then I thought about writing about an issue that is a little closer to home relating to an ill family member, but I didn't really feel like making that particular subject available to the eyes of everyone on the net, and the idea of pouring my heart out for the purposes of a module at university made me feel uncomfortable.
I also thought I could just write about my day-to-day happenings, like a diary. But what more could I have writtenthan 'got up late, went to lecture, went to bars, woke up on the beach without my wallet' over and over? Student life isn't really all that interesting to other people, plus I really wanted to add another dimension to these posts, something that was tangible to the reader. So, as I thought on this dilemma, I clicked around on a Wikipedia page that I had opened. I could spend all day clicking links on Wikipedia, and reading. I eventually came to a page on public information films. I had seen some British PIF's from all through the years before, usually about a little boy name Charlie that warned of the dangers of strange men and looking both ways before crossing the road. Others I had seen told the viewer of what to do in case of nuclear war (enter your 'fallout room', apparently. If you don't have one, you're up sh*t creek it would seem).
Further reading on the subject lead me to American public information films from the 50's and 60's. Some of these seem more to be instructional guides on how to live, at first glance. Their tone is often stern and the subject matter surprisingly propaganda-like on close inspection. My interest was officially taken. Closer studying also told me that many of these films were copyright free, which would allow me to post some of them on Youtube for all to see, if I could find them in their original form.
So the subject of this blog is American public information films from the 50's and 60's. I have collected these videos from various sources thanks to my (usual) resourcefulness and hope that you enjoy seeing them (some of them are unintentionally hilarious) and reading about my thoughts on them.
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